Marble Bar

Marble Bar holds the Australian record for sustained heat: from October 1923 to April 1924, the temperature reached or passed one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, about 37.8 Celsius, on one hundred and sixty consecutive days, and the town has traded on being the hottest in the country ever since. Its name comes from a bar of banded rock crossing the Coongan River nearby, which early settlers took for marble and which is actually jasper, striped red, white and grey, best seen wet. The Comet Gold Mine outside town has a museum and a tall chimney, and the Ironclad Hotel of 1892 still trades. The surrounding Pilbara rock is among the oldest on earth.

What you actually see

• The jasper bar - the banded rock crossing the Coongan River.
• The Ironclad Hotel - the 1892 corrugated iron pub in town.
• The Comet Mine - the mine museum and chimney outside town.
• The heat record - the town's identity built on 160 consecutive hot days.

When to go

May to August; from October to March the heat is extreme, regularly above forty-five degrees, and the wet season can cut roads. Even in winter the days are warm. Visitors come partly to say they have been.

Honest expectations

There is very little in the town itself, and the drive from Port Hedland takes over two hours each way. Summer travel here is genuinely uncomfortable and can be hazardous. Services are minimal, with one pub, a store and a caravan park.

Nearby

Port Hedland lies northwest; the Pilbara ranges are south.